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Westerland Society and Culture
This article is about Source Land Culture & Society in the Westerlands, which is a geographical region in the game setting. This article will assume that the reader is interested in learning about society during an era where the Westerlands are still pre-modern, particularly focusing on Feudal eras. The Westerlands has a history of Feudal rulership, and while that isn't necessarily the case in the time period one might choose to play the game in, but it remains a heavy influence on later rules and laws. Concepts of Society There's a few basic concepts of Society that are necessary to understand before one can likely fully grasp the essence of how society works in the Westerlands. Religion Whether or not the religious structure was built to support the feudal hierarchy, or the other way around, the religions of the Westerlands are used as justification to maintain the social structure. * See Source Land Religions for more information on this subject. Feudalism Feudalism refers to a pyramid command structure, where a ruler sits atop the pyramid, delegating to middle-management on multiple levels. This sounds like fairly ordinary military chain of command initially, until one realizes that each middle-management link has near total autonomy over their own subjects, with there being a pre-agreed arrangement between them and their own overlord. * See Westerland Feudal Traditions for more information on this subject. * Feudalism mainly applies to the Post-Imperial Era of the Westerlands, and is not particularly applicable to neither later, nor former time periods. Social Castes The Westerlands has a number of essential castes that make up the different layers of its society. A given individual's place in society was largely determined by his Dynasty. * See Westerland Social Castes for more information on this subject. Peerage The Westerland follows a Peerage Hierarchy, at lest loosely, consisting of a myriad of titles, offices and positions that those of sufficient standing can obtain. Affiliation with these positions is what typically defines a person's Social Caste. * See Westerland Peerage for more information on this subject. Dynasties Dynasties were essentially pedigrees - family trees - that existed to show relation to others, often serving as a base to justify belonging in a specific caste of society. Dynasties were identified by their Heraldry. * See Westerland Dynastic Traditions for more information on this subject. Heraldry The Westerlands have their own customs in regard to heraldry, which was used to identify specific Dynasties, and were only relevant to certain Social Castes. * See Westerland Heraldry for more information on this subject. Rights In our modern world, everyone has rights of some sort. That is not so much the case in the Westerlands, where most people in fact do not have particularly many rights, if any. There certainly are certain assumed rights as well as norms and standards, but in truth, particularly few people are in fact entitled to their rights. * See Westerland Laws for more information about this subject. Officials and Offices Naturally, in order to retain a specific society, someone must actually ensure that the rules are understood, established and followed. This lot falls to the appointed Officials who take various offices. * See Westerland Offices for more information about this subject. Enforcement Someone had to enforce the verdict of the Officials, and this fell to the Military (in a feudal society, there was rarely a distinction between Military and Police). * See Westerland Military for more information about this subject. Life Examples of what life is like in the Westerlands during different time periods, for different classes of society. * See Villa Life, Block Life, Citadel Life and Town Life.